英國思想界對里斯本大地震（1755）的回應

Abstract

This article gives an account of contemporary intellectual reactions in Great Britain to the Lisbon Earthquake of 1755. Unlike French and German reactions to the earthquake, the British counterpart is much understudied. This article argues that the patterns of reactions in England and Scotland were very much different. In England, the Church took a leading role in making public sentiments about the event and its ramifications. It argues forcefully that the earthquake agitated an Evangelical revival and antipathy of Catholicism. In addition, many churchmen consciously appropriated the earthquake event to call for collective identity and loyalty of the convents on the eve the Seven Year's War. Theologically, those churchmen were inspired by the event to dispute ideas of natural religion in face of Revelation religion. In Scotland, however, this paper argues, intellects and writers alike generally kept their view of religion as metaphysical as before. Not only the skeptical David Hume, but also moderate Adam Ferguson, Church leaders such as Hugh Blair and others said no words of the earthquake. The collective silence in Scotland shows their hesitation to Revelation religion. Accordingly, physical evils were treated as pragmatic issues and severed from religious or transcendental meanings.